A reasonable debate

One thing to clarify

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:05:33 -0500

In so many places I have read that Villareal did not show up, that Wigan is no real opponent, that Man City cannot travel, that we are beating easy teams in training matches. It is not even a question of beating what is in front of you. It is more - to overplay your opponent and make him look bad. As I see it - we are really playing brilliantly (and when we are not - we finally have the ability to change the game and start playing brilliantly), and we are making all our opponents look bad. Take nothing away from the team at the moment, they deserve praise now! Keep it coming!

Trust and payback

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:42:32 -0500

Well, a lot of time has passed. There was no point to write anything, as everything was really obvious anyway (and I did not have time).

Wenger has always insisted how much he trusts his current players, and it seems that finally this trust has payed off and the players are starting to pay him back with excellent performances. I have to say that I am really surprised about some of them. Now, the only thing we can hope is - that they will also prove that they have consistency, and that psychological power to keep their concentration for the rest of the season in every game, in every minute.

Song has really transformed himself. Finally it looks like he has a purpose when he runs. He is much more comfortable on the ball, his distribution has improved. But most importantly - he covers good space when we are off the ball.

It also looks like we have gained a lot of variance in the attack. Finally we do not play as one dimensionally as we did at one point in the season.

So the next couple of games are really crucial. And for a fan - it is really hard to wait for them. That funny feeling inside, that tension all the time. As soon as the game is over, you start to sweat for the next one.

The most important thing - I am now confident that if every playr plays up to his full potential, even with all the injuries - we can beat anyone.

Arséne, what are you teaching them in training?

Thu, 6 Nov 2008 10:05:18 -0600

So another 90 minutes of a game have passed (I cannot really call it playing football). Am I surprised with the outcome? Unfortunately, I have to say no. The one thing that I thought about watching the game go on was: "Arséne, what are you teaching them in training?" Now, I have heard about his revolutionary training methods, and that he wants his trainings to be enjoyable, and that he tries to praise the players wherever possible so to increase their self-belief, but if the players still fail to do the most simple and basic things in football, then either they are just stupid, or he is not teaching it to them!

And I am not even talking about defending/attacking in set-pieces. That is not the most simple thing. I am talking about:

Closing down opposition. Whenever opposition has the ball, we seem to just wait for them to lose it. Either we are too arrogant and don't believe the opposition can create anything, or there just are no instructions to try to get the ball back.
Off the ball movement. Passing play is very nice, per se. But one thing that it brings with it is general slowness. It is very hard to play a quick passing game. And what we are doing at the moment is that we are playing an extremely slow passing game (even our counter attacks are slow). The opposition has enough time to bring enough people back and create 2 lines of defence based around the beginning of the penalty are (simply called as parking the bus, but in no way a negative tactic, as they don't have to play defensively to do that, they have all the time in the world to come back from our half). Now, once they are there with their bus, we still continue our passing game. And guess what - nothing happens. The biggest problem, as I see it, is off the ball movement. The only person who moves around is the one with the ball, while the others more or less just stand statically and wait for a pass. The best example was last night when Kolo was standing with the ball on the right side of the penalty area - normally a very dangerous position. But nothing happened. The only thing he could do was to put yet another pointless cross into the box, because nobody opened up. The only movement I see on the pitch is the team moving from our half to the opponent half in one shape with the fullbacks running a bit further to overlap. How had could this be to mark down? (In this respect Theo is the best player we have, the only one making diagonal and across the field runs.)
Passing direction. This is very much connected with the previous point. When we have the ball and are in position and start passing it around it goes something like: from centre circle to the side, from side to the corner flag, from corner flag back to the side, from side to centre near the penalty box, from there back to centre circle. Rinse and repeat. Phase 3, profit? As I said, this is connected also with players (not) making runs, but yesterday, once Fabregas decided instead to pass a lobbed ball over the defence in the penalty area, van Persie almost scored. Why not try that more often?

Of course, I do not honestly believe that Arséne would not be teaching these simple things to players, but could it be that he is asking them just to not do them (by asking them to do different things)?

Let's do a Tottenham on Man Utd

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 06:55:46 -0600

I know the chances of that happening are slim, and I know you would not like the way I called it, but imagine what effect would us beating Man Utd have on our and their season? Yes, we have played bad this season, but if we beat the upcoming strong sides, we are still in it, and beating the strong sides has been a thing we have did a couple of times.

Now, it is completely obvious that going on the way we do, we won't beat the Arsenal ladies if we ever played them. So there need to be changes made. What are the changes you would make, given that the transfer window is still yet to come?

First, the Arsenal needs some fresh blood, and not only on the pitch. Perhaps appointing a new CEO, a director of football and most importantly - an assistant manager before the game might have the needed morale boost that, let's face it, Tottenham got in their "messiah" 'Arry. Now, I do not really know how a football club is run, and what is the task of Pat Rice, and I he would be very far down the line of people to blame for where we are, but would it not be a kick up the primadonas' asses if someone like Martin Keown was appointed an assistant coach and, what is most important, would have a real say in trainings and most importantly during matches?

Second, the team needs to have a real roughing up given to them. And it has to be public in the way that it is seen on the squad selection. The worst thing to do is to openly criticize a bad performing player thus destroying his confidence completely. But a game in reserves (to get sharper)? And thus being tired after it, sitting in the stands against Man Utd? If we have so tremendously good youths coming through, why not give them a chance? Surely they cannot do worse than a couple of the players we are seeing currently?

What is obvious though is that youth players cannot play a whole season, but if they get a game or two now, it will be excellent experience for them, and might help the primadonas' regain focus as well!

So the team to face Man Utd:

GK - 2 games ago I was finally confident with Almunia and finally did not wish for another keeper (after a long time of wanting somebody more determined). So I still think that he might turn out good. The bad thing is that I have no clue about how Fabianski is. Maybe it would be good to play Fabianski against Fenerbahce, and if he plays a blinder leave him in goal, but normally I would still stick with Almunia

LB - Clichy all the way. One of the few players to have player really well recently. And his mistake against Tottenham was not even an unforgivable mistake, it should not have led to a goal.

RB - I am actually a bit disappointed with Sagna. He really offers us very little going forward. I don't remember the last time he made a good cross. Still, he is mostly very reliable in defence (though sometimes lacking pace a bit). I hope his injury is not serious and would be equally comfortable with him or Eboue (who I think did not play bad when he played as a RB this season) at RB, though I guess Sagna still is a bit better.

CB - Sylvestre and Gallas. As much criticism as Gallas has had this season, I do not have complaints about him for the game against Tottenham. I wish we had some other options (why did we not go for Manchester's Dunne?), this seems to be the best we have. If there are any defenders in the academy, let them sit on the bench.

DM - there just has to be a player in this position. And Denilson / Song / Diaby are not up for it. Djorou? He always said he wanted to play in CM, he has some pace, he has some presence, he can tackle, he even has some control. Now, I remember that he did not play too well for Birmingham there, but hell, he will surely be better than the trio mentioned. And surely there si somebody in the academy that can play there as well? The played does not have to be a tackler, but he has to be a runner.

CM - Cesc. He simply is undroppable, and that is not a good thing. He has to up the game, but it is also dependant on whom he has around him. And somebody has to tell him that when we start our attack, he should be nowhere near our penalty area. Stay on the centre circle and move forward. Let Gallas or Djorou bring the ball out and pass to you. He has been dropping far too deep recently.

LW/RW - I don't want to see any CMs there. Ever. Period. Nasri has played rather well on the left, and can play also on the right. I do hope that Walcott is fit. If he is then him and Nasri should be on the wings. And they should be making runs into the penalty area. I have seen enough of them receiving the ball either near to the corner flag and passing it back or receiving the ball on the centre line and passing to the corner flag for the fullbacks. They should also remember that it is sometimes OK to have a long shot. If Walcott is not fit, play Nasri right and Gibbs left. There just has to be one winger there somewhere in our youth team. Play Wilkshire, he sure is ready for at least one PL game. And don't play CMs or fullbacks there.

FW - Bendtner has to start, but I would prefer him in a deeper role, his passing ain't half bad and normally he can hold on to the ball a bit. And Vela has to be all the time as far as possible not to be offside and ready to make the run on the pass (similarly as our wingers).

Lastly, our tactics need to change. I am sick of this idea that the only attacking way is making short passes on the floor. It does not work when opposition are blocking the penalty area and we are passing from the centre to the side, and from the side backwards. You cannot play fast football with short passes. If you want to play fast, you have to give some long passes over the defenders or some through balls. So we have to start our attacks with passes towards Bentner to head it to Fabregas who should be near the opposition area, not ours or for Vela/Walcott to run onto. We have to play with more pace, as we do not have good control or power to play slowly.

So the team would be:

Almunia, Sagna, Gallase, Sylvestre, Clichy, Walcott, Cesc, Djorou, Nasri, Bendtner, Vela

Bench:

Fabianski, Eboue, a Toure, Ramsey, Diaby (he has not yet underperformed so much to be completely dropped), Willkshire, FW from youth team, e.g. Simpson

So Adebayor, Denilson, Song should be dropped at all.

Now we have all made fun of our neighbours trying to copy us, so why not copy them for once? (Tongue in cheek, of course.)

Now, what are the odds of this happening?

Did you see it coming?

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:02:50 -0500

For how many of you does this come as a surprise? When we were 4:2 up and it was about minute 75, how many of you felt comfortable? I sure did not. Bringing RvP off for Diaby was a pretty good Choice. But Nasri and Walcott off for Eboue and Song? I don't want to be rude, but is Wenger and idiot? What was that supposed to achieve?

This team has not been able to kill off games for a long time. I am not speaking about games where they are clearly stronger, I speak about tight games where they get the result finally close to the end. Are you ever comfortable at that point?

And most importantly - will they learn from it? Well, recent history shows that they will learn zip out of it. Wenger has made them believe they are special, and the arrogance coming from the team is incredible.

Now, looking at the table we see that we are 6 points away from Liverpool and 3 from Chelsea, with Man U possibly being 2 ahead of us. Is it a bad state? Actually not, a good team could overcome it easily. I have just stopped believing that we are a good team any more. I would not mind the lack of quality in certain positions, as long as it would be compensated with passion and work ethic. But I do not see those either. It is very hard to associate with this team any more.

Hull City 5:0 Porto

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 03:43:42 -0500

Football and maths do not really work, do they? We played yesterday far better than we did on Saturday, and I guess it should be especially pleasing that we achieved it with basically the very same players. Still, I am sure it is very far before we can well and truly get carried away. The main reason - Port were really, really poor. The first half still resembled a battle between two teams, but in the second half it seemed that they had just put their heads down and bent over for a spanking. Which did not really come.

So I am somewhat disappointed that after it was sure we are going to win, we took the foot of the pedal. 4:0 is a really nice result, but I think this could have been a game of records. And coming back to the maths theme of the day, if Hull city (playing as they did against us) played Porto (playing as they did against us), Hull would win (not by 5:0 of course).

Anyway, you can beat only the team that you play against, and putting 4 in the net of a team that has consistently been amongst the top teams in Europe (and lifted the trophy) and having a clean sheet is a nice statement. The two braces should put some confidence back in the strikers (and the fans), the big amount of chances created - in the midfield, and the defence should be proud of yet another clean sheet (and I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of Almunia. To be able to make a save after not having much to do is a sign of a good goalkeeper).

Arsenal 1 - 2 Hull City

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:30:03 -0500

So we have the second defeat of our league already so early in the season. That is definitely not a good thing, but lets look at it a bit from perspective. Points-wise we are still up there with the leaders (if ManU win their game they will still be below us), so us having 2 defeats should not be far worse than Chelsea and Liverpool having 2 draws. How much worse? Exactly 2 points worse that is.

The one worrying thing that many fans state is that ManU are where they are because they have played Liverpool and Chelsea already, while we still have to play any serious opponent. And to this I can only partly agree. The Hull side that beat us on Saturday could give a game to any of the "Top 4", if they play as they did against us. Yes, we were not at our best in the game, but we were still beaten by a better team on the night. Now lets hope Hull continues in the same manner!

What I am trying to say here is that it is still far too early to judge our team. Our season is sitll in the making, so let it be. This really is the season to deliver, so if at the end of the season we are trophy-less, then some heads should roll. But now is not the time.

What has to be done now is that the manager should address the main weaknesses:

Cesc is forced to play very deep because of Denilson attacking too much. Denilson should be dropped immediately for Song (or Djorou maybe?)
Even with the recent Hattrick, Adebayor looks completely out of the game currently. Bendtner deserves a few starts. Actually, many starts.
Vela should get a more important role in the team
Gallas should be dropped at least for a couple of games

If those can be addressed, I honestly don't think we are far from where we want to be!

When draw is the best result

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:52:14 -0500

So Chelsea kept their record going. Bad? Not really, it might actually put some pressure on them at some point. We are still top of the league. United are still struggling a bit. Alex still keeps selecting some of the players he should not. Ronaldo still is a diver, but also a terrific player. Chelsea still have some problems to create chances against an organised team with pace. Nobody in the Premier League seems to be above everybody else.

We really have a terrific season ahead!

And there still is a team without a win in the league.

Stranger things have happened. Or have they?

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:54:38 -0500

So, comrade Eboue has scored a goal? An equalising goal? Well, stranger things have happened. Or maybe not. I have to say that I am extremely happy for him. Honestly, I never really liked him deep in my heart, once he moved to RW, but seeing all the stick he got from The Arsenal fans, most of which was over exaggerated, I felt that I have a mission to stand in for him in debates. So well done, comrade!

And now I am off to sleep, it is GMT +4 here, and I have been flying the whole day...

Title for the first post

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:36:38 -0500

So The Arsenal is playing Notlob on Saturday, and I am travelling the whole day... Not only will I have to wake up at 4:30 to catch a plane at 5:55, I will also not see the game, and most probably watch Chelsea vs. ManU on Sunday. How many red cards can a game have before it is stopped?

Thinking about the season up to now is rather strange. Last season, when The Arsenal finished 4th, being so close to winning it after leading for the larger part of the season, I thought that we are really short of 1 wide player and perhaps 1 "conventional"CB from having a team I am fully comfortable with. This came down to me not thinking of Hleb or Rosicky as being wingers, leaving us with only Walcott. Now, I understood that a team can play with a playmaker on the wings, but not 2! So I wanted to have 1 pure left winger added, and then everything would be nice. Either Rosicky on the left and Walcot, or Über-left-winger ((c) Basil_II) on the left and Hleb on the right.

And then came the summer, and the ice-cream, and a nice contract from Meelan, etc. We added Nasri on the left (who is rather another PM winger, but is so much like Pires that I am happy with that), but lost Gilberto, Flamini, and Diarra.

Still, if we look position by position, we are more or less fine:

GK - I have grown to be happy with Almunia, and Fabianski should provide sufficient cover. Manuel has not yet proven to be world class, but he is actually on the way
LB - Clichy is already world class (just a bit more of end product would do), and I am much happier with Silvestre being his substitute than Traore (who will be much better after the loan move)
RB - Sagna, as solid as ever, Eboue is a fine substitute
CBs - Number wise we are fine there, so any addition should be at the expense of an existing player (as Silvestre for Phil) - and I don't expect Wenger to ever step back from his philosophy of what a CB should be like
LW - Nasri is quickly becoming my favourite player! He is so much like Pires! He is a Hleb with bottle. Or Hleb with a bottle... As long as we have Rosicky as a sub, all is fine. Now, when we actually have Rosicky as a sub, is another question
RW - Walcott has made the position his this season. I do not see him yet as a striker, and we do not really need any more strikers. And I have no problems with Eboue standing in when needed. I only have a problem if Eboue is ahead of Theo.
CMs - numbers-wise everyone agrees we are fine. Cesc, Denilson, Song, Diaby, Ramsey, Wilshire, even Eboue. The problem is that there is not a clear candidate to play alongside Cesc (while all of the mentioned players could do that)
FWs - Plenty of options here - Adebayor should be considered a top PL striker, RvP has gone a little bit backwards, but still scores a lot of goals, Bendtner is up for it, Vela as well, and we even have Eduardo. Packed to the brim!

Now turning to the CMs situation - people were asking for experienced signings. Everyone said that a 30 million player is not needed, but still the players that were called for would have cost 15 to 20 millions (Alonso, Barry, etc.). Now one thing to know about Wenger is - he will always pay what he feels is a fair valuation of a player. I think the "re-sale" value is just a word he used, I don't think he considers that (what was the re-sale value of Edu, Pires, Willtord then?).

I think that Wenger honestly believes that one of Song/Denilson/Diaby can be the person, or at least can do a decent job, so he does not want to buy e.g. Barry for 18 m and get e.g. a player that is 1.2 Song (that of course is a trivial example). Yes that would be better, but not 18 m better. A different thing is when it comes to Appiah - he is for free. So either we will still go for him, or again - Wenger thinks it would not be an improvement big engouh to take the risk.

So I am actually quite confident about this season. I don't think that in the end of season us winning something/not winning will have been decided by us buying a player or not. Actually I believe that while a new player could have made us stronger, the margin is really little. So if we are capable of winning it this year - we will. On the other hand - if we are not (taken into account how Chelsea are playing now), even a new player would not have helped.